time in the evening. How many girls of today could walk that many
blocks?

The lake was full of the biggest fish imaginable. We used to catch them,
and dry and smoke them. They made a nice variety in our somewhat same
diet. We used to fish through the ice, too.

Major C. B. Heffelfinger--1858, Minneapolis.

Well I remember the St. Charles hotel as it was when I first boarded
there. The beds were upstairs in one room in two rows. Stages were
bringing loads of passengers to Minneapolis. They could find no
accommodations so no unoccupied bed was safe for its owners. Although my
roommate and I were supposed to have lodging and were paying for it, the
only safe way was for one to go to bed early before the stage came in
and repel all invaders until the other arrived. If the sentry slept at
his post the returning scout was often obliged to sleep on the floor, or
snuggle comfortably against a stranger sandwiched between them.

The strangers who arrived had made a stage coach journey from La Crosse
without change and spent two nights sitting erect in the coaches, and
were so tired that they went to bed with the chickens. On lucky nights
for us they were detained by some accident and got in when the chickens
were rising.

Nothing was ever stolen and many firm friendships were thus cemented.
Our pocketbooks were light, but our hearts were also. It was a
combination hard to beat.

1857 was the most stringent year in money that Minnesota has ever known.
There was absolutely no money and every store in the territory failed.
Everything was paid by order. Captain Isaac Moulton, now of La Crosse,
had a dry goods store. A woman, a stranger, came in and asked the price
of a shawl. She was told it was $15.00. It was done up for her. She had
been hunting through her reticule and now put down the money in gold.
The Captain looked at it as if hypnotized, but managed to stammer, "My
God woman, I thought you had an order. It is only $5.00 in money."

Mrs. Martha Gilpatrick--1858, Minneapolis.

When I married, my husband had been batching it. In the winter his diet
was pork! pork! pork! Mrs. Birmingham, who helped him sometimes, said
she bet if all the hogs he ate were stood end to end, they would reach
to Fort Snelling.

We had a flock of wild geese that we crossed with tame ones. They were
the cutest, most knowing things. I kept them at the house until they
were able to care for themselves, then I turned them out mornings. I
w